LONDON: Trustafarians. That’s what London Police call them. Grungy, angry, anarchistic protesters with too much time, too little money and too many causes to protest loudly over.
On Saturday afternoon, the trustafarians were out in full force, waving placards, making noise, causing disruption. And leaving their empty beer cans on the streets of Whitehall or as close to the fortified entrance of Downing Street as they could get – or were let by the hundreds of police, some in full riot gear who kept them under watch.
But the trustafarians also brought their spray paint, defacing a beautiful and moving black granite and bronze war memorial that stands elegantly in the centre of Whitehall.
In gold gilded lettering the monument reads: “In honour of the women of World War II.” Except that after the trustafarians had done their work – the only bit of work many would ever appear to have done – there was added, in crude red spray paint “[expletive] Tory Scum.”
From the signing of the Magna Carta, the right of freedom of speech and protest has been abided by here. Indeed down Whitehall and in the Gothic confines of the Palace of Westminster, where the newly elected House of Common and the House of Lords gather, the rebel lords who forced the hand of King John in 1215 to sign the magna carta are honoured in the very hallways and corridors of power.
There were 45 millions who could have voted in Thursday’s general election. In England, 64 per cent of the electorate chose to vote – in Scotland, three out of four did so, determined that their voice would be heard as never before in Westminster. And this democratic process returned David Cameron with 331 seats.
There was no violence at the polls or during the campaigns. There were no car or suicide bombs, no intimidation to keep voters away, no rigged counts, forged ballots, no generals standing in the wings to overturn results.
Instead, from the moment the polls closed, thousands of election workers diligently unfolded and sorted the ballot papers, and placed them in neat stacks of 100 each, then these were doubled checked and duly recorded and announced for all to see. Timely, transparent, true.
But not to these angry trustafarians who cursed and taunted police, drank their beer, and defiled that black granite and bronze war memorial.
The police are used to this mob. Every week there is a protest, every month a new cause.
But ths was a very special weekend in London – and across every European nation touched by the horrors of the Second World War. That ended 70 years ago on May 7, and London had turned the anniversary into a party, where the men and women of every race, creed and colour who fought and died and survived were honoured.
There were wreaths laid at war memorials – even at that black granite and bronze memorial for the women of World War Two.
And these trustafarians? They honoured those with urine and spray paint.
How sad, that a generation who sacrificed all for the principles of democracy and freedom of speech and political protest and opposition are remembered not with a wreath, but with “[expletive] Tory Scum”.
And how did the police handle all of this.
They watched, and took the abuse, and let these trustafarians blow off steam before they return next weekend.
At Parliament Square, heaving with tourists taking pictures of the historic place, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the statues honouring great people of history, a sole punk rocking protester, with a nose and lip piecing, spiked ginger hair and a dirty T-shirt and waistcoat, carried aloft a placard with two words: “[expletive] you”.
A yellow-coated police officer walked over and simply said: “Put in down. There are children about.”
Deflated for a moment, the trustafarian did, shamed with a simple truth.
And another real simple truth?
The people have spoken. Cameron has a mandate to govern. And it is these trustafarians who are scum.
